Today, Donald Trump said he “loved the idea” of exiling American citizens to a foreign country—El Salvador, specifically. Let’s be brutally clear about what just happened:

The President of the United States casually suggested reviving one of history’s darkest, most repressive tools—banishment from one’s homeland.

This is not policy talk.

This is not rhetorical flair.

This is the sound of authoritarianism testing the water.

And if your first instinct is to say, “Don’t be a dumbass, he doesn’t mean it,” then congratulations—you’ve just helped him move the line.

The Constitution Says No—For Now

Let’s do what Trump won’t and look at the law:

  • The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and no state or federal government can “abridge the privileges or immunities” of that citizenship without due process of law.
  • The 5th and 6th Amendments guarantee due process, legal representation, and trial by jury. Exile—without charge, without conviction, without recourse—is a clear violation of these rights.
  • And the Expatriation Act of 1868, passed after the Civil War, affirms that “the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people.” In other words: no government can strip your citizenship and force you to leave unless you choose it.

Trump’s “idea” isn’t just un-American.

It’s blatantly unconstitutional.

And yet, somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

This Isn’t a Joke—It’s a Warning

This isn’t the first time Trump has fantasized about silencing or ejecting dissenters. He’s suggested stripping citizenship from protestors. He’s mused about using military tribunals on civilians. He’s attacked the media as “enemies of the people.”

Now he’s floating deporting citizens—sending them to a country they may have no connection to, no family in, no means to survive in—because he and his sycophants decided some people deserve it.

That’s not tough talk.

That’s not swagger.

That’s tyranny.

And history has seen it before.

  • In Stalin’s USSR, exile was the favored tool for erasing dissenters—if you were lucky enough not to be shot.
  • In Pinochet’s Chile, critics were “disappeared” or expelled under the guise of national security.
  • In Nazi Germany, early stages of repression included stripping people of citizenship and forcing them out of the country.

It always starts with the suggestion.

Then a test case.

Then silence.

Then the door slams shut.

First it will be the worst criminals who are citizens.

Then it will be the editor of whoever is the latest publication dubbed “Fake News.”

Then it will be the protester holding a sign making fun of Trump’s giant orange head.

The Silence Is Deafening in the GOP

Where are the constitutional conservatives the Republican Party is so proud of?

Where are the so-called patriots who always put personal freedom ahead of government control?

Where are the free speech warriors, the civil liberties defenders, the flag-wrapped defenders of liberty?

They’re silent. Or worse—they’re amused.

Because when it’s Trump, it’s not tyranny. It’s “just Trump being Trump.”

They won’t stop him.

They’ll explain it away.

They’ll laugh, and the line will move again.

And the next time he says it, it won’t sound so absurd.

It’ll sound… possible.

Who Will Stop Him?

This is not a game. It’s not satire. It’s not a meme.

This is a man who has already called for terminating the Constitution, already tried to stay in power illegally, already used state violence against protestors, already hoarded classified documents, already demanded loyalty oaths, already celebrated authoritarian regimes abroad.

And now, he’s saying out loud that he likes the idea of exiling his fellow citizens.

So ask yourself—if he does it,

if he signs the order,

if they load the plane,

if the courts hesitate,

if the system blinks—

who will stop him?